


Here Today And There Tomorrow

by tookumade



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Junior High, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 15:38:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4227375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tookumade/pseuds/tookumade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A first meeting on opposite sides of the volleyball net, and chance meetings afterwards without it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here Today And There Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karasuno Volleygays (ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor/gifts).



> Thanks for pinch-hitting! Hope you like this gift. :D

“Hanamaki, nice spike!”  
  
The guy they called Hanamaki—tall, light haired, and sporting the underlined number one that was their captain’s shirt—slapped a low-five with their setter, grinning widely. On the other side of the net, his opponents reassured each other: _don’t mind, don’t mind, we’ll take the next point!_  
  
Matsukawa watched from the bench as he waited until it was his turn to rotate back into the game. His team was already trailing one set in this Spring High tournament match—the last of his junior high tournaments—and needed to win this second set if they were to have any hope of advancing. They weren’t doing too badly, but it was just that their opponent, Oritate Junior High, were a pesky lot to deal with and were tied with them now, after having reached sixteen points each.  
  
He watched as the captain— _Hanamaki_ —turned to the rest of his team and clapped his hands sharply.  
  
“Let’s get this next point too!” he barked. His teammates shouted back in agreement as their number five stepped up to serve.  
  
Hanamaki was a decent player, thought Matsukawa rather begrudgingly. Tall—the tallest on his team—and an all-rounder who was especially good at spikes, but also had good receives and blocks going for him, as well as a careful read of the game. He was firm, but patient, and kept his team fired up the way a good captain knew how.  
  
He was also not very fast, a majority of his spikes tended to angle to the left a bit, and he brought his elbow down a little too low whenever he pulled a feint.  
  
“Hey, after I serve, leave marking Oritate’s captain to me,” said Matsukawa quietly to his own team’s captain, when it was their turn to rotate and he had switched with their libero to came back onto the court. “I’ve noticed a few things, and I think I can hold him off a little.”  
  
His captain raised his eyebrows at him. “He’s annoyingly good, so if you can, then we can probably take back this set, but if not…”  
  
“I can do it.”  
  
“Okay then, we’ll be counting on you.” He clapped Matsukawa’s shoulder.  
  
Matsukawa’s serve was nothing special, and easily received by one of Oritate’s other wing spikers, but there was no time to worry about that as he darted closer to the net, in front of Hanamaki, just as Oritate’s setter tossed to him. They both jumped for it at the same time, and Hanamaki slammed the ball against Matsukawa’s fingers.  
  
“ _One touch!_ ” Matsukawa yelled.  
  
“ _Nice, Matsukawa!_ ”  
  
Their libero sent it to their vice-captain, who spiked it over the net and earn their side a point. As they cheered victoriously, Matsukawa snuck a glance at Hanamaki, who caught his eye and simply raised his eyebrows at him, before turning to encourage his own team.  
  
The next ball that went Hanamaki’s way ended up with the same result, with Matsukawa’s team scoring another point off Matsukawa’s soft block. The ball after that, Matsukawa blocked Hanamaki’s spike outright, and it was received by Oritate’s libero before both teams engaged in a brief rally which finished in Oritate’s favour. On and on it went; kill blocks and soft blocks alike, and Matsukawa following Hanamaki like a shadow. He got past him a few times, but not enough to get Oritate in the lead.  
  
“Not bad,” said Hanamaki after another of Matsukawa’s kill blocks, just loudly enough for Matsukawa to hear amidst the cheering. Slightly startled, he looked over his shoulder, just in time to see a small smile flashed his way before Hanamaki was already walking back into position.  
  
It was hard to tell which was more exhilarating; all these blocks he was managing, or that… smile? It had been a long time since he had last experienced such an adrenaline rush.  
  
And it was honestly _amazing_.  
  
But he couldn’t get distracted now; Oritate were moving again, which meant Hanamaki was too.  
  
_He’s had three of his spikes blocked in a row by me,_ thought Matsukawa as the setter tossed the ball to Hanamaki again. _He knows the chances of them working aren’t that great anymore, so this time he’ll probably try…_  
  
Hanamaki jumped and drew his arm back to spike… and dipped his elbow too low–  
  
“Got you–”  
  
As soon as Hanamaki touched the ball, Matsukawa twisted his body a little and his foot shot out and kicked the lobbed ball before it could hit the floor. There was a loud chorus of noise that he didn’t have time to pay attention to, before his team’s setter tossed it to one of their other middle blockers, who sent it over the net, slamming the ball and ending his spike with very satisfying _bang_.  
  
“ _Yesssss!_ ” his teammates cheered, slapping high-tens with each other and clapping Matsukawa’s back, all grinning widely. “It’s our set point!”  
  
On the other side of the net, Hanamaki looked stunned. Spikes aside, up until now, all of his feints had been successful, but _this_ —this was new.  
  
“Don’t mind, Hanamaki!” one of his teammates shouted, the rest of them echoing him. Hanamaki blinked like he was trying to shake off the shock, and turned back to them.  
  
“My bad,” he said. “I’ll _definitely_ get the next one.” A smiled twitched at the corners of Matsukawa’s lips at the challenge.  
  
Hanamaki did get it; it was another powerful spike, sent to him by their libero, which he hit just out of Matsukawa’s reach.  
  
“Sorry!” said Matsukawa as his captain clapped his shoulder. “I’ll get him next time.”  
  
“You’re doing good, Matsukawa!”  
  
“Go for it, Matsukawa-senpai!”  
  
They got into position again as they waited for Oritate’s player to serve. Matsukawa and Hanamaki were standing directly opposite each other, separated only by the net, and trying very hard to hold back smiles; it was clear that they were both enjoying this match. He wondered if Hanamaki felt that same adrenaline rush that he was feeling.  
  
_Matsukawa_ , Hanamaki mouthed, and Matsukawa smirked at him and nodded slightly.  
  
Oritate’s serve was received by Matsukawa’s team’s libero, who sent it back over the net, and both teams engaged in another rally. Emotions were running high and neither team were faltering in the slightest, especially not with the encouragement they were finding from Matsukawa and Hanamaki testing each other with powerful spikes and skilful blocks, pushing the other like it was a finals match; neither backing down, both relishing in the challenge.  
  
Hanamaki got into position in front of the net again as one of their middle blockers punted the ball towards their setter, and Matsukawa followed him, brain working furiously. Oritate were being backed into a corner and _had_ to score to keep from losing morale and from widening the point-gap, and Hanamaki was the best option as their best player. His last feint—reliable up until now—hadn’t worked, which had surprised him greatly and thus made it unlikely he would try it again this time, which left spiking as his best option.  
  
Matsukawa could deal with his spikes.  
  
They both jumped–  
  
_His spikes angle to the left–_  
  
Hanamaki’s hand slammed against the ball… and it promptly hit Matsukawa’s arm and fell back onto Oritate’s side of the court, hitting the floor before their libero could reach for it.  
  
Behind Matsukawa was an explosion of cheers and screams from his teammates, and then several joyous thumps on his back as they jumped to ruffle his hair and yell “ _Nice block!_ ” into his already-ringing ears. He had done it; he had taken this set for his team.  
  
He chanced a look at Hanamaki, who was slapping his teammates’ shoulders and telling them loudly and firmly as they made their way hastily off the court for a quick drink break, “Don’t worry, we’ll get the third set!”  
  
He turned, and for a brief moment, he and Matsukawa caught the other’s eye…  
  
And grinned at each other.  
  
  
  
—  
  
  
  
“Of all the people I could run into, it has to be you, huh? Matsukawa, wasn’t it?”  
  
Startled, Matsukawa looked up from his phone, eyes quickly finding the owner of the voice. At the sight of Oritate Junior High’s former captain, Hanamaki, standing not far in front of him, in casual clothes and with that familiar grin on his face, there was a very vivid rush of sensations in Matsukawa’s mind; the crowd cheering, the referee’s whistle blowing, those blocks, those spikes, reading that feint, winning that second set… Oritate finally breaking the deuce in the third set with 28 points to 26, shaking hands with Hanamaki at the end and giving each other a meaningful look that said _this isn’t over for either of us_.  
  
“I could say the same,” said Matsukawa, tucking his phone into his pocket and smiling back despite his words. “Hanamaki, right?”  
  
“Aw, you remembered!”  
  
It was hard to forget, if Matsukawa was being honest.  
  
It was a mellow Sunday and he had just finished running some errands in the city for his parents, who were out of town for the weekend. He had a few minutes before his bus back home was due to arrive, so he bought himself an iced coffee at a nearby café and was making his way to the bus stop. But now, Hanamaki was walking beside him, and Matsukawa could feel that familiar rush of adrenaline as though they were standing opposite each other on the volleyball court again.  
  
“Uh, got much planned today?” said Matsukawa somewhat awkwardly as he prodded at his drink’s contents with his straw and tried not to stare at how relaxed Hanamaki’s smile was—he had only seen him smirk or grin widely and victoriously up until now, and it was giving him rushes of adrenaline again.  
  
“I’m meeting my cousins for dinner tonight at some okonomiyaki place near here, so I’m just hanging around until then. Got nothing to do, though. You?”  
  
“Just on my way home.”  
  
“I’m not bothering you, am I?”  
  
“No,” said Matsukawa a little too quickly. “Not at all.”  
  
“Oh, good.” Hanamaki flashed him another smile and Matsukawa felt his stomach swoop a little—did adrenaline rushes do that? Yeah. Yeah, of course they did.  
  
“Uh, so,” said Matsukawa articulately, “how did the rest of your matches go? At the Spring High, I mean.”  
  
Hanamaki wrinkled his nose and shrugged. “We lost two sets to zero against Kitagawa Daiichi in the round after. You know, the team with the pretty boy captain who won the Best Setter award?”  
  
“Yeah, the… one with the blue and white uniform. They lost to Shiratorizawa in the end, didn’t they?”  
  
“Yeah, but they took a set against them. That’s already pretty amazing.”  
  
“It’s gonna be such a pain in the ass playing against them in high school,” said Matsukawa with a sigh. “All of them.”  
  
“You should include yourself in that category.”  
  
“Excuse me?” Matsukawa turned to look at him and raised his eyebrows, but he was grinning and looked more surprised and amused than actually offended.  
  
“You heard me,” said Hanamaki, returning his grin. “You blocked _so many_ of my spikes in our match in the second and third sets, which makes you an A-grade pain in the ass.”  
  
Matsukawa pressed a hand over his chest and looked mock-touched as he joked, “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” Hanamaki stopped to double over with laughter, and Matsukawa felt another swoop in his stomach.  
  
It was so easy talking to him, like he was someone Matsukawa had known for a long time. They talked about volleyball, mostly, as they drew closer to the bus stop—how they started (Hanamaki had watched a national team match on TV when he was younger and gotten hooked; Matsukawa had joined his junior high’s team out of curiosity), how Hanamaki was appointed captain (“Our teammates literally made me and the other candidate arm-wrestle for it, but I think he lost on purpose, so I'm not sure how to feel about that…”), what they thought about other teams and their stand-out players, and playful banter about their match against each other.  
  
“You actually drop your elbow a little too much when you feint,” said Matsukawa. “I noticed when I was rotated off and could watch from the sides, so–”  
  
“Wait, you were watching me?” said Hanamaki, a mischievous grin spreading across his face.  
  
“Well…” Matsukawa prodded at the bottom of his now-empty cup with his straw so he could avoid looking at him, because he felt a heat in his cheeks that he was pretty sure Hanamaki could see. “I decided that I was going to take you down a few notches, so I _had_ to watch you. You know, figure out your weaknesses and stop you completely, utterly crush your team’s morale, win the game…”  
  
“There were some moments when I thought you would,” Hanamaki admitted after his snickering had died down. “I couldn’t get rid of you at all, you were _such_ a pain in the ass–”  
  
“Yes, you made that compliment clear, thank you.”  
  
“–but you were _good._ Like, it was _really_ fun playing against you.” His voice was so earnest that Matsukawa glanced up again, and caught Hanamaki looking back at him with an unexpected intensity that Matsukawa was completely unprepared for. It was just a brief moment before they both quickly looked away again, but Matsukawa felt something like a spark, a jolt, something so different from the adrenaline rushes and the swooping sensations that this boy brought along, and he immediately found himself thinking _I wish we had gone to the same school._  
  
“It was a good match,” Matsukawa muttered after an awkward pause. “Probably one of the best I’ve played in so far. I think if–”  
  
The sound of bus wheels cut him off and he looked up sharply and then swore.  
  
“That’s your bus, huh?”  
  
“That’s my bus! Sorry, I’ve gotta–”  
  
“Yeah, go for it,” said Hanamaki, grinning again, and adding in a louder voice as Matsukawa broke into a sprint, “Maybe I’ll see you around!”  
  
“Yeah, sure! Take care!” Matsukawa waved over his shoulder, taking in the sight of him for as long as he could before he had to focus on speeding up and getting to the bus stop in one piece. Luckily, he made it just in time, slumping into a free seat on the bus as he tried to catch his breath.  
  
And he couldn’t stop smiling as he ran his and Hanamaki’s conversations over and over again in his head. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had made him feel so warm in his chest, in a way that definitely had nothing to do with his sprint.  
  
It was only once he returned home that Matsukawa calmed down a little, before realising that he completely forgotten to ask Hanamaki which senior high school he would be attending. The feeling of disappointment at this lapse settled in his stomach for a while as he laid back on his futon and stared up at the ceiling, before he pushed the feeling back. Given all the high schools in the prefecture, they probably wouldn’t be going to the same place anyway, so he’d be disappointed regardless.  
  
Still, he could have asked. At least then, he would know and could look out for him at volleyball tournaments, maybe.  
  
He sighed a little. Oh well, there was no point thinking about that anymore. In a week’s time, Matsukawa would start senior high school at Aoba Jousai High, so he might as well try to look forward to that… and, well, maybe occasionally hope that he’d run into Hanamaki at volleyball tournaments.  
  
He smiled into his pillow. Maybe, maybe.  
  
  
  
—  
  
  
  
Somehow, they had missed each other at the Aoba Jousai High entrance ceremony, weren’t in the same class so didn’t see each other for a majority of the school day, _and_ managed to also miss each other completely when it was lunch time.  
  
So seeing each other again at the start of the volleyball club’s first after-school practice session? That was poetry.  
  
Matsukawa had just entered the noise-filled gymnasium and set his bag down against the wall, when he felt the sort of prickle you sometimes feel when someone is staring very intensely at you. He turned slowly, and, inexplicably as he did so, he found himself suddenly knowing exactly who had seen him. There was a burst of excitement in the pit of his stomach at his gaze immediately found a familiar face half-way across the gymnasium: Hanamaki.  
  
And after a handful of seconds of stunned silence, grins spread across their faces and they both promptly keeled over laughing at the same time. They were loud enough even over all the noise in the gymnasium that some of the other club members turned to stare at them blankly, the vice-captain bristled at their apparent lack of decorum, and the coach sighed and muttered about being ‘too young to get grey hairs from dealing with another bunch of troublemakers’.  
  
Matsukawa and Hanamaki barely noticed any of them, and only calmed down when until the captain clapped his hands sharply and called out in a loud and firm voice for everyone to stop what they were doing and gather around the coaching staff. Matsukawa and Hanamaki fell into step beside each other, still grinning, and nudging each other playfully before straightening up and turning their attention to the words of the advisor, welcoming the first years to the club.  
  
It was going to be a good couple of years.

**Author's Note:**

> FYI, the idea of Hanamaki being captain of his junior high team comes from the [OH MY BABY](http://www.toranoana.jp/mailorder/article/04/0030/31/10/040030311064.html) doujinshi by [Rōji-san](http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=2604317).
> 
> Thank you for reading!!


End file.
